First Aid
by contemptuousMartyr
Summary: Cram studying. A common cause for sleep deprivation. The knock at the front door was almost a welcome interruption, if an unexpected one.


**This started out as a semi-joke, but it was about the OTP, so I had to make it into a story. Yep. This is what I've been doing with my time. Not writing big, intimidating crossovers, just writing small fics about teenagers being dorks.**

**Anyway, the rating is for lightly implied themes. Nothing too scandalous..._yet_.**

* * *

Two in the morning was a rather common time for a teenager to be awake, although everyone had their own reasons. Unsurprisingly, the most common reason to be awake was school work, and this was the very thing that kept a certain blonde girl awake tonight.

Terra sat in the small living room of the equally small house that she shared with her friend and her older sister. The coffee table before her was littered with various scribbled-on notebook pages and a few open text books. Cram studying. A common cause for sleep deprivation. The knock at the front door was almost a welcome interruption, if an unexpected one.

However, the person that she opened the door to was even more unexpected.

"Uh...hey, Terra," Beast Boy said, his tone cautious as he seemed to avoid putting weight on his right leg.

Truthfully, it wasn't uncommon for him to visit at all. He and Terra had more or less been in a relationship for a few months now, having worked out an agreement after their little episode at her school. She wouldn't come back to the team, but they would still keep in contact with each other. This went on for about a year, until he finally worked up the nerve to tell her how he felt. The rest can be interpreted.

Still, he must have a good reason to be knocking on his girlfriend's door at two in the morning.

"Hey yourself. Why are you..."

At first, his situation didn't fully register with her. She could tell from his facial expression and and strained voice that he was in pain, but it wasn't until a dark patch of red started to form against the magenta of his uniform that she realized he was actually hurt.

"What the hell happened to you?!" she started, quickly getting cut off by him covering her mouth with his hand.

"Shh-! Not so loud, I don't want the whole neighborhood to wake up. That would bring the guys here and then I'd be in some deep shit."

"Beast Boy, you're _bleeding_," Terra hissed. "I think you're already in some deep shit."

"I know, I know. Can you just help me with this?"

Even without seeing it, she could tell that the wound was still bleeding, and that was clearly of a higher priority than chewing him out. She groaned as she gave in and grabbed his arm, dragging him inside and into the bathroom. She directed him to sit down on the edge of the bathtub, and he complied as she pulled the first aid kit out from under the sink.

"Take your pants off," she muttered, starting to fill the sink.

"What?"

"You heard what I said. Seeing the blood will be a dead giveaway. Pants. Off."

"How do you know water is going to get the blood out?" he asked, slowly starting to undo his belt. Yep, definitely procrastinating.

"I know a little more about getting blood out of clothing than you'd think."

The sink was almost overflowing by the time he had finally gotten his pants off and handed them to her, and Terra partially regretted not suggesting - completely as a joke - to help get them off. But she knew that statement would raise more problems than it would solve. He's just feeling lucky that the boxers he had chosen to wear today were not too terribly embarrassing.

The gash was straight across his leg, about in the middle of his thigh between his knee and his waist. It was deep, too - enough to bleed a considerable amount but thankfully not enough to cause permanent damage.

"Am I going to live?" he asked.

"No, I'm afraid not," Terra mused as she started to dab at the blood with a washcloth. "You're going to die."

Beast Boy winced. "How long do I have, doc?"

"If we're lucky, sixty years or so."

For a few moments, he kept watching her as she worked, but given the position she was in, this didn't seem like the best idea. He turned his gaze up to the ceiling, pretending to be completely transfixed in the way that the air coming from the vent made the shower curtain move instead of focusing on the minuscule brushes of her fingers against his skin.

Okay, bad thing to focus on. Shower curtain. Just pay attention to that. The shower curtain, and how much that gash is hurting right now. Yes, that was much easier.

His hand clenched as she started to wrap gauze around the wound, and he hoped that she wouldn't ask him how he had gotten it in the first place.

Instead, she said something even worse.

"You know, I sort of thought that the first time you took your pants off for me would be under slightly different circumstances."

"T-Terra, c-can you just focus on this?" he stammered, quickly trying to force down the mental image that her statement had brought.

"Huh? Ohhh, I get it. We can't have your mind wandering, can we? Although, it wouldn't be completely my fault if it did. It is _your _mind, after all."

"S-shut up." She must be doing this on purpose. She truly is evil.

She gave an extra hard tug down on the gauze and he winced again, almost kicking her in the shins from the sudden pain.

"Sorry. I'm almost done."

"You better be," he grumbled, wanting to get out of this position more than anything in the world right now.

"You do realize that you're going to have to wait here for an hour while your pants dry, right?"

Of course he new that. Was she really mistaking his desire to end this awkward situation as a desire to leave as soon as possible? As long as his girlfriend wasn't kneeling down in front of him with her hands gripping his thigh, he couldn't care less about how long he had to stay.

"Yeah, it's fine. We can watch a movie or something."

"Or you can tell me how you somehow got a mysterious gash on your leg at two in the morning and went to me instead of the Titans for help. Either works." She finished wrapping up his leg, pressing down on it ever so slightly as she stood up. A silent reminder that he's still in trouble.

"It wasn't a big deal," Beast Boy started as he got up. "I was just trying to let off some steam, you know? Head into the woods as a bear or something, claw up a few trees, nothing dangerous. I just...forgot that it was hunting season."

Terra looked back at him, aghast. "You got _shot_?!"

"Actually, you know, I don't think it is hunting season," he said quickly, trying to change the subject. "I need to find that hunter and have him ticketed for illigally-"

"_Garfield_."

Damn. His real name. That was never a good sign.

"What, did a punching bag just not cut it for you?" she asked, angrily shutting the cabinet door with her foot. "You just _had _to risk your life for the sake of 'letting off steam'?"

"I never knew that my life would be in danger!" he defended, limping slightly as he made his way back out into her living room and flopped down on the couch. "I just didn't..."

"You didn't think, that's what you didn't do." Terra sat on the very opposite edge of the couch from him, avoiding his gaze as she folded her arms. "You didn't think about what would have happened if..."

"...if that guy had been a better shot?"

Silence. A dangerously long silence.

"I hate this," Terra eventually said. "I hate that every time you go out on one of those missions, the only thing I can do is look out the window of my classroom or watch what happens on the news. If something happened to you, I would be completely useless. I hate not having powers. Honestly, that's the only reason that I sometimes miss them."

"Terra..." Beast Boy shifted over to where she was sitting, cautiously wrapping an arm around her and pulling her to his chest. "You're not giving us enough credit, you know. We've been doing this for a long time. The only reason I got hurt now was because I was alone."

"I know, I'm just...it's stupid, forget I said anything."

"No, it's not stupid. I'm worried about you, too. With all the weirdos in this city, I have no way of knowing if your school is going to be some whack-job's next target. But I trust you, and I know that you're tough enough to stay safe. Do you know why?"

She looked up at him, shaking her head.

"Because worrying doesn't do anything. Besides, it's not like I can follow you around all the time, and you can't do the same for me. Look, I'm sorry. I really am. Not just because I got hurt, but because I hate making you worry about me."

"...It's fine," she sighed. "Just let off steam in the daylight next time."

"Deal."


End file.
